


Gone

by andlucyy



Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types, The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Angst, Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:09:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25392145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andlucyy/pseuds/andlucyy
Summary: Ponyboy remembered the day Soda was deployed in flashes.
Relationships: Ponyboy Curtis/Curly Shepard, Sodapop Curtis/Steve Randle
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this sucks i was trying something new <3

Ponyboy remembered the day Soda was deployed in flashes. 

Twenty year old Soda walked away with a sad smile on his face. Everyone was there to send him off. They were all trying to wipe away their tears as quickly as possible. 

Darry had his arm around Pony’s shoulder a little too tight, like he didn’t want to let go of his little brother. And Pony didn’t want him to ever let go. 

Behind everyone’s back, Curly took Pony’s hand and held it. Something was off about him that day, not that Pony could take much notice. He appreciated the attempt at a little extra comfort, though. 

Two was silent and couldn’t bear to look up, to face the reality of Soda leaving. He was standing next to--

Steve. Pony didn’t know how to describe Steve on that day. Soda was closer to Steve than anyone else in the entire world. They were like brothers, maybe more. Soulmates. Ripping one away from the other, maybe forever, was cruel. Watching the two see each other for, what they could only assume was, their last time, was a painful scene. 

Soda had said his goodbyes to everyone else. He had finally arrived at the one everyone knew he was dreading the most. They stood still, staring into each other’s teary eyes for a dragged out moment. Neither quite knew what to do with themselves. 

“I… I’ll miss you,” Soda said, almost brokenly. 

“Me too.” 

Another long second passed and Soda threw his arms around Steve, pulling him as close as he could. Pony could tell that Soda had started crying because his shoulders were shaking in Steve’s embrace. 

They parted, then leaned their foreheads against each other. Soda’s hands cupped Steve’s cheeks and wiped away a tear rolling down his cheek. They were whispering things to each other. No one would ever know what was said, although Pony swore that he saw Soda say ‘I love you too’. 

Then, they released each other and Soda left. Steve wasn’t crying, he didn’t look sad or angry, kind of just… empty. It felt like everything hopeful in the world had drained away and a gray filter had been placed over everything.

Pony didn’t like to think of that day. 

  
  


Pony remembered the day Curly was deployed not much more. 

He wasn’t smiling like Soda, he was scared shitless. And only Pony, Tim, Angela and their mother were there. She was the only one he could recall crying. 

Tim was stoic and silent but his calculating eyes were empty and dark. The frown he wore wrinkled his face and made him look far older than twenty-two. 

“Tim--” Curly started, looking at the floor. 

He was cut off when Tim pulled him into his chest and wrapped his arms around his little brother. “You better come back, you hear me?” 

“I will.” Curly shut his eyes and returned Tim’s hug. There was no certainty that he could keep that promise but it provided some comfort at the time. The same empty words would be said all around Tulsa that day. 

Pony saw their embraces tighten just before they let go. 

Angela was different from everyone else. There was a fire in her eyes, she was furious at the world. 

“It’s not fair, you’re only nineteen, there are ten thousand other men in this country--” 

“It’ll be okay. I’ll be back in a few months,” Curly reassured her. 

“Yeah… but you’re gonna miss our nineteenth,” she huffed, trying hard not to cry. 

Curly hugged her. “I’m gonna miss you, Angel.” 

“You better come back, or I’m gonna kill you,” she said, voice breaking. The irony of the statement almost amused Pony. 

“I will.” 

Curly turned to his mother, who wasted no time in pulling him into her arms. 

Pony had to concentrate hard on not crying. There were already tears in his eyes, blurring his vision. He looked up in an attempt at ushering his tears back into his body, which barely helped. _Don’t cry, don't cry, you promised Curly you wouldn’t._

When Pony looked back down, Curly was standing in front of him, clearly also trying to repress tears. Pony bit his lip. There was a tense silence where inconvenient memories managed to push themselves to the front of Pony’s mind. 

_“Besides, I wouldn’t mind if you were the one to break my heart,” Pony said demurely, in no way anticipating Curly actually breaking his heart._

_“Me neither.”_

“Well, I told you I’d never hurt you…”  
  
“You also said you wouldn’t live past eighteen but here we are,” Pony shrugged. 

“We’ll see each other again,” Curly said with finality. 

Pony nodded and felt the tears coming back. “I’ll miss you.” 

“Yeah…” 

Pony took a step forward. “I love you, always,” he whispered. 

Curly took Pony’s hand, like he had when Soda left. “I love you too.” 

Pony stared into the pretty blue eyes he adored and tried to memorise Curly’s face. His dark skin and his darker freckles; the lips he’d kissed countless times -- Pony wished he could touch them then, just once; his surprisingly soft wild, black curls. There was so much to see, so much to admire. 

Pony didn’t like to remember that day either. 

  
  


However, Pony found himself recalling both days eight months later. The house was empty, as far as he knew. Darry at work, Two and Steve God knows where, Curly and Soda… gone. 

During the six months that Soda was away, Steve quit his job at the DX and stopped hanging around the gang so much. There really wasn’t any explanation for it, apart from the fact that it hurt too much to be around things that reminded him of his best friend. However, after receiving news that Soda wasn’t coming back, Steve rebuilt his relationship with everyone. He was tremendously different. 

Steve was longer the hot-headed asshole that Pony once saw him as. It was like that part of him died with Soda. He was quieter now. Fewer witty comebacks, more thoughtful sentences that seemed to appear once in a million years. Pony kind of missed how Steve was before, if he was being completely honest. 

Pony was flipping through the channels on the television, praying something could occupy and distract him from his thoughts. The ever changing sounds of aimless programs echoed through the house, almost ghostly. The Curtis’s was a lot quieter nowadays. Similarly, so was Pony. 

Darry insisted that he'd changed over the past months and that he wanted him to see someone, but Pony _insisted_ that he hadn’t and that it was a waste of money anyways. 

After a few more minutes of browsing, he turned the television off and wandered into another room. There was a stack of paper on the dining table and out of curiosity, Pony looked through them. It was a bunch of his old work from high school that Darry probably wanted to throw away. 

It wasn’t very interesting until something captured his attention. 

_“The Outsiders”_. Pony smiled fondly at the memories. 

_Soda tries to understand, at least, which is more than Darry does._

Images of a young, sympathetic Soda appeared in his mind. He was the best person Pony ever knew, a lot of people would preach to that. 

He read on. 

_“Need a haircut, greaser?”_

Pony cringed and skimmed through the rest of the jumping. He didn’t want to relive those memories. 

_...with thick greasy hair he kept combed in complicated swirls._

Pony laughed at his fourteen year old description of Steve. He sounded like _such_ a pansy, noticing all those things about the boys. Maybe that’s when it all started -- describing boys and getting a little too into it. He tried to put himself back into that state of mind, picturing Steve and writing it like that. 

“Anybody home?” 

Speak of the devil. Steve’s voice broke the peaceful silence and he slammed the door behind him as always. Pony scrambled to put the writing away and had barely concealed it when Steve entered the room. 

“Hey, Pony.” 

“Hey.”

“What’s up?” Steve asked, peering onto the table. 

“Nothin’, just lookin’ through old stuff,” Pony said nonchalantly. 

“Oh…” he stopped, as if he was remembering something, then asked, “anything interesting?” 

There was no way Pony was going to show Steve his writing. “Not really,” he shrugged offhandedly as he sat down on one of the chairs. Steve joined him at the table. 

There was a while of tense silence. Neither really had anything to say. The only reason they tolerated each other was because of Soda, and he was gone. But Pony knew that both him and Steve were going to be mutually civil, in honour of Soda’s memory. It wasn’t something they had to discuss, they both just knew that it was the right thing to do. 

“You look like him, y’know?” Steve suddenly said. 

Pony turned to Steve, knowing exactly who he was talking about. “I never got that,” Pony admitted, looking away, “but thanks.” It was true, he could never see the resemblance between him and Soda in his actions or looks. Pony always saw himself as so much less than Soda, but then again, no one compared to Soda.

“Yeah… you remind me of him.” 

Pony looked at Steve again, bewildered at his statement. Their gazes met. He never noticed a lot of things about Steve, like the dark bags around his eyes. It reminded him of Curly, who had constant dark circles around his eyes from the late nights of roaming Tulsa. Pony always thought that Curly kinda resembled a raccoon because of that. 

“I miss him,” Pony said, referring to both Soda and Curly. He turned away and felt his face go warm. 

“Me too,” Steve replied wistfully. Pony stole a glance at him out of the corner of his eye. Steve wasn’t looking at him anymore. 

“Did you love him?” Pony blurted out without thinking. His face grew hotter. _Fucking idiot, why did you say that, use your fucking head--_

“Yeah.”

“What?” 

“I said yes.” 

“Oh.” Pony was surprised at how he reacted to the question. He was expecting him to get all defensive and leave or something -- It was probably what younger Steve would’ve done. Then, Soda would follow him out and make him feel better. They’d probably blow off some steam in a fight or a drag race then talk about it and get drunk afterwards (Pony couldn’t believe he bought Soda’s ‘drunk off life’ bullshit). What happened _after_ that was a mystery to the world, and no one needed to know. That would stay between Soda and Steve forever. 

Pony looked at him again, shocked to see tears silently streaming down his face. 

“I loved him,” Steve said softly to himself, “I loved him a whole lot.”


End file.
